PeerCentered is a space for peer writing tutors/consultants or anyone interested in collaborative learning in writing centers to blog with their colleagues from around the world. Bloggers here will share their ideas, experiences, or insight.

Pages

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Contrastive Ethos: Chinese and English Rhetoric

Introduction

Every
culture has their own paradigm, their own way of seeing the world. They each
have central values specific to their own identity, and these values play an integral
role in the shaping of how members of each culture form their arguments in
literary formats. For example, in China, people place a strong emphasis on who
a person is and on paying the respect due that person. Therefore, a person's
ethos is considerably more important in China that it is in many Western
cultures.

~Blog
One~

The
Ethos of the Author

The
ethos of the writer, his supposed character or reliability as seen on the
written page, is important in written Chinese. This comes from a tradition
begun over a thousand years ago, when the masses were uneducated and only a few
could claim the distinction of knowledge. Those who were educated, as part of
Confucius theory, assumed the responsibility of educating those who were not in
both ethics/morals and practical information. However, the educated few often
never came in personal contact with the masses. To make up for this, early
Chinese scholars felt that they must create a persona within their writings
that would command attention and respect from those reading it. This would
guarantee that they would be listened to. Thus, the national importance of
ethos was born out of necessity (Li).

One
way that early writers found to bridge this gap between the author and the
reader with ethos was to create a sense of “sincerity” within their writings.
They wanted to build a sense of mutual trust between the reader and the writer.
To do this, they attempted to impart a sense of “spiritual import” to their
readers—a sense which was more than simply an emotion. It was their duty. Their
readers needed to know that they cared about their well-being and lifestyles.
Those that were educated were required to provide a sort of betterment for
those that were not; their duty was towards the society as a whole, not towards
themselves. Thus, they did not make the didactic, or ethical, part of their
discourses difficult to discover. This was for two reasons: the main one being
that this element was a critical part of the information that they wished to
convey. The second was because the conveyance of the didactic gave them a
legitimacy of purpose (bettering their audience) that otherwise would have been
lost. This is in strict contrast to how an American writer would seek to retain
readers. In the West, the current method is to entertain readers while subtly
slipping in something that might not otherwise be learned—somewhat like
slipping a carrot into a chocolate brownie and hoping no one notices.

While
it would be naive to think that Chinese rhetoric has remained completely
unchanged in terms of ethos since its earliest origins, it has remained quite
static when compared to other languages. Chinese authors still feel a duty to
win the respect of their readers and, once that respect is gained, to prove
that their persona was worthy of such respect through the information that they
choose to impart. In the words of a modern student, “I can't let myself gossip
and talk about a lot of things...useless to my audience. I have to tell them
something that I think is valuable to them. Paper is not expensive, but time
is” (Severino 56). The writers still have a profound respect for their readers,
and do not want to waste their time on something that the reader may not
consider important.

China's
modern authors are also turning more to the use of emotional language to build
their ethos. This emotional language shows the sincerity of the author for his
topic, and thereby gives legitimacy to it. This is most commonly seen in the
“sanwen”--the “loose writing” that young Chinese are becoming accustomed to
(Li). It is emotional, breaking the bounds of a more conservative past to
convey a new sort of ethos to their readers. It is striving to give a stronger
sense to the reader of the importance the author places on a particular topic.

Thus,
ethos has always been, and perhaps always will be, an important part of Chinese
rhetoric. It has changed in minor ways over the ages and will undoubtedly
change more as Western influences seep into its framework. But, because of the
respect that the Chinese carry for their readers, it will probably remain as an
important part of their literary creations for many more centuries.

Post a Comment

How to join PeerCentered

Search PeerCentered

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in PeerCentered and in comments are the author's alone, and do not reflect the opinions of any other PeerCentered bloggers or any employer thereof. PeerCentered is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by its bloggers or commentators.